


Selling a Dream

by ser_dontos



Category: Emily of New Moon - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ser_dontos/pseuds/ser_dontos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth Murray spends a summer with Aunt Nancy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selling a Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss M (missm)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/gifts).



Elizabeth Murray at sixteen was a tall, stately girl – a little too angular to be thought pretty, but there was something pleasing about the spare lines of her face, and an elegance about her neck.

It was that long neck that proved her downfall with Aunt Nancy – a neck like that could make or break a girl.

 

Nancy had almost given up hope of seeing another beauty in the family, and it pained her to see a neck like that being wasted – why have it if all you were going to do was look down on people with it.

 

Still, she hadn't given up hope altogether, or so it seemed when she invited Elizabeth to spend the summer at Wyther Grange. Elizabeth was apprehensive; not because of the supposed hauntings, which she treated with all the disdain that a Murray could conjure; but at the thought of spending all those weeks closeted with Aunt Nancy and her strange husband. After all, you could never trust a Priest, not truly.

 

Perhaps that meant she couldn't really trust Aunt Nancy either, since she seemed to have thrown her lot in with those of Priest Pond, for better or, based on her frequent complaints, for worse. It seemed like Aunt Nancy could never forgive her for the fit of temper that had seen her lash out at her cousin Jimmy, but all the while she relished the opportunity to lament what might have been for the family's bright, shining boy.

 

If Elizabeth were truly honest with herself, she was also dreading the prospect of leaving the homely comforts of New Moon. At her age, she knew she should be feeling some sort of urge to set up a home of her own, but she didn't think that anything would ever quite be able to compare to her childhood home.

 

It was with distinctly mixed emotions, therefore, that she arrived for her visit. The chilly rooms with their historic trappings gave her no qualms at all, but Aunt Nancy's gimlet eyes bearing into her whenever they were in the same room sent veritable shivers down her spine.

 

Worse still, Aunt Nancy seemed intent on introducing her to every eligible and not-so eligible member of the Priest clan, and their assorted relatives. It was clear that Aunt Nancy was trying to make a match for her, but what Elizabeth couldn't work out was whether Aunt Nancy was intending to do her a favour or to punish her.

 

After a few weeks of uncomfortable dinners and awkward parlour meetings, Elizabeth started looking for opportunities to escape. Especially after a particularly uncomfortable encounter with young Andrew Priest, who cornered her in the parlour – trying to avoid giving him the wrong idea, she focused her attentions on Aunt Nancy's queer pickled snake, and found she couldn't decide who had the colder eyes. She didn't think of it as seeking an escape, naturally, but she suddenly became convinced that lengthy beach walks were essential for strengthening her constitution.

 

Her spirits felt lighter for the exercise, but it's entirely possible that had more to do with the pretty orchard trees around Priest Pond reminding her of home than the benefits of a brisk walk. It was on one of these lengthy afternoon constitutionals that she first encountered a merry-eyed girl with curling chestnut hair, seemingly lost in communion with the trees.

 

She felt a spike of wistful envy and curiosity, but could scarcely own to such un-Murraylike sentiments, not even to herself. She thought about the girl as she sat through another interminable dinner, and almost wondered what it might be like to throw her own arm around the trunk of a young apple tree as if it were an intimate companion.

 

She saw the girl again the next day, as she secretly hoped she might. She conducted her own brand of covert surveillance in the coming days, but couldn't think of a conventional way to make the strange girl's acquaintance. Sometimes she couldn't think of a reason why she might want to, but the information gathering added spice to her days, as she eagerly listened in to conversations she found stultifying before, just to see if she could glean any information about the mysterious newcomer.

 

It turned out she wasn't the only one with an interest, from various sources she discovered that the girl was called Ruby Gregg, that she was a cousin by marriage of the redoubtable Matthew Priest, and that she was visiting from the city for the summer. The most _sotto voce_ gossip decried her strange tendencies as a typical city mania for nature.

Luckily for Elizabeth, it turned out that Ruby also wasn't interested in observing good old country conventions regarding introductions and making acquaintances, as on a beautiful August day she found herself being hailed.

"Walking girl? Won't you tell me why you're in such a hurry and where it is you're hurrying to?"

Elizabeth pulled up short, unsure how on earth a body was supposed to respond to such a greeting.

"I'm sorry, walking girl. I shouldn't call you walking girl, really. I know you're Elizabeth, but you're one of the formidable Blair Water Murrays, aren't you? You'll forgive a city girl her casual ways, won't you? It's just that... I see you everyday, walking so purposefully and so fast, and I can't imagine where it is you need to get to in such a hurry, not in a place like this."

 

"I... I don't know. I just like to walk, and there doesn't seem to be any point in wasting time." It wasn't often that Elizabeth struggled to explain herself.

 

"You could never waste time on a day like this, unless you spend it indoors. Although this isn't the best place to be spending it either, by rights we should be spending it by the sea. Won't you come with me."

 

Elizabeth hesitated, flabbergasted but intrigued.

 

"Oh, say you will. Can't we just skip that getting acquainted part and be friends already. I've so wanted to be friends all summer, but your famed Murray fierceness has kept me at bay."

 

Against her better judgement, Elizabeth felt herself drawn by Ruby's soft brown eyes and winsome expression. After all, a part of her has been wishing for something similar. "Well, all right."

 

The two young women set off down the path to the coast and Elizabeth found that she couldn't avoid being drawn out by Ruby's chatter and forthright questioning. She wasn't just experiencing the beauty of the cliffside path for what felt like the first time, she was learning everything there was to know about Ruby too. The other girl was every bit as candid and open as she seemed to want Elizabeth to be. It was impossible not to respond.

Walks with Ruby became a daily feature, and by the end of the week they were walking arm in arm as if they had known each other for years. They didn't walk so far as Elizabeth might have done on her own, but their walks took her to so many more places. It was the kind of intimate friendship she had never really experienced before. Back in Blair Water there wasn't anyone quite suitable for a Murray to associate with in such a way, and although she loved Laura dutifully, there was a barrier there that she couldn't quite overcome. Sometimes she wondered if Laura hadn't really forgiven her for what she had done to Jimmy either. 

She had no such worries with Ruby, she'd found her deepest and darkest secret bubbling out of her quicker and easier than she'd ever thought possible, and instead of the reproach and the shock she was expecting to see, she'd found nothing but understanding and sympathy in Ruby's deep brown eyes. It was that understanding, more than anything, that sealed their intimacy for Elizabeth. She'd never imagined that anyone could simply accept her terrible wrongdoing. Whether it was her father's silent judgement or Aunt Nancy's pointed barbs, she always expected some kind of recrimination.

Ruby merely told her she was wild, and that it was a sign of passion. "I admire passionate women," she said.

Elizabeth had never thought of passion as being admirable, she'd been encouraged to bridle her emotions from such a young age. It freed something in her, being understood and admired, for everything she was. 

She couldn't loosen up all at once, but she allowed herself to be drawn into more of Ruby's stunts, however un-Murraylike they might be. And so it was, during the dying days of summer, that Ruby induced her to romp on the dunes, which somehow ended up with the two of them racing and rolling to the bottom, skirts flying and hair in disarray. And it was there, at the foot of the tallest dune, in the sun-warmed sand, that Elizabeth laid all caution to the winds and whispered "Won't you kiss me, dearest?"

And Ruby did.

 

 


End file.
